August 21, 2015 - Tim Binder Visits

We spent a good portion of the evening discussing some old Metallic Onslaught playlists that Joe had come across. These dated back to roughly 1999 or so, and featured music from local favorite Hate Machine, not to mention Filter, Sevendust, the Go-Go's... Yes, you read that right. Apparently Joe was fond at one point of playing something not even remotely heavy, and then killing that track with something brutal. In this case, The Go-Go's were followed by a track from Mortician. Kinda fitting! And it sounds like something we should bring back from time to time, just for shits and giggles. Azkath also had one of his Last Exit For The Metallic Onslaught "Best Of" DVD's playing in the background, so there was a bit of commentary regarding some of the bygone days of both shows.

Rick had brought up our journey to The Lost Horizon in Syracuse to see High On Fire, which was an amazing show. We only caught a little of the first band, Venomous Maximus, but we liked what we heard. Lucifer were incredible, a very pleasant surprise, as I wasn't familiar with their material at all. Highly impressed with that band! Pallbearer were a bit of a letdown, only because their forty-minute set really didn't offer a lot of variety in tempo. Slow, trudging, doomy as hell (this is a good thing!), but really not overly distinguishable from track to track. What can I say about High On Fire? This was my second time seeing them, and they are the real fucking deal. One of the loudest, genuinely heavy bands out there. They are absolutely crushing live, and I recommend the fuck out of them. 'Nuff said!

Our old friend Tim Binder had come out to join us this evening, actually the first time he'd paid a visit to the Onslaught since our final night at the old studio, all the way back in July of 2014. This was actually the night when Jeffie had offered Tim some "goodies" that had been acquired at Grassroots Fest in Trumansburg. Tim started flipping out, thinking Jeffie was a monster, and had attempted to kill Jeffie. I actually took responsibility for that kill before it was all said and done. Anyhow, we were pleased as hell that Tim had come out to join us that night...right up to the point where he mentioned the Savatage/Tran Siberian Orchestra performances at Wacken. Don't get me wrong, Tim loves Savatage, but seems to hate TSO, even going so far to say that they shouldn't have played at Wacken at all. Now, we're all pretty open-minded, and we all pretty much realize that not all of our musical tastes are compatible. But...in this regard, Joe and I took strong offense. As a matter of fact, Tim ended up getting temporarily banned from the show by Joe. Ultimately, we let him back in, though. I mean, we kinda had to. He'd parked in a particularly soggy part of Azkath's driveway, and his car had sunk so far down that it was irretrievable. I'm sure things worked out well, in the long run, though, as I called Spanky over to give Tim a ride back to Canandaigua. At least, I assume Tim made it back okay...

Azkath brought up a little game they'd played on the previous edition of The Last Exit For The Lost, encouraging us all to share our earliest memories. Now, that's really not easy for me to do, because I remember quite a ways back, but it's hard for me to place events in the proper continuity. With that being said, Josh told us how he'd swallowed a penny at the age of four, and his dad going nuclear. On the plus side, it seems that everything came out alright in the end, pun totally intended. In fact, Joe even went so far as to ask Josh if he'd kept the Poop Penny... I was actually able to recall three early memories, the first being the time I broke my left arm. I was roughly three or four, and fell while stepping out of a wading pool at my grandparents old home in Fairville, NY. I'd been carrying a plastic fish that had filled up partially with water, lost my balance while carrying it as I exited the pool, and came down on the arm, resulting in a compound fracture...and a really frightening experience for a youngster of that age group! Seriously, I distincly remember screaming in horror while being x-rayed! There were a couple others I recalled, but I won't go into further detail here. Rick recalled a time when he'd bounced a padlock off the head of a classmate who'd tried to pick a fight with him...and then shared a particularly funny memory that involved him taking bites out of a pig's head (it was cooked!), and spitting the pieces out at people in the crowd. And, hey, if that's not metal, I don't know what the fuck is! Joe had the most difficulty really coming up with anything. We ended up using his first time hearing KISS or first time seeing Star Wars as reference points. He finally did recall a fairly early memory of getting pulled out by a riptide while visiting Florida. Azkath also recalled getting pulled under by a wave while visiting Long Island sound. Actually, it's kinda interesting how some of our earliest memories are of scary encounters in the water! Just serves to remind us that nature is VERY deserving of our respect!

-Metal Wulf